What is extreme energy?

Definitions of extreme energy often come with lists of examples that the term is said to encompass. Extreme energy is often considered as a category into which can be consigned all the new, more intensive and environmentally destructive energy extraction methods that have been spreading across the globe in recent years – methods such as ‘tar sands’ open-cast mining (also called the ‘oil sands’), mountaintop removal, deep water drilling, shale gas extraction by hydraulic fracturing (‘fracking’) and coal bed methane (also called coal seam gasification). Biofuels and big biomass can also be considered ‘extreme energy’ as large-scale agricultural operations dedicated to energy production can remove the potential for land to grow food.

Extreme Energy is the process whereby energy extraction methods grow more intense over time, as easier to extract resources are depleted. The process is driven by unsustainable energy consumption and is important because extraction effort is strongly correlated with damage to both society and the environment. Read more

There are clear human rights implications when energy extraction becomes more and more ‘extreme’. The Extreme Energy Initiative seeks to outline the human rights implications arising from increasingly more intense extraction methods.